


Of All The Bars In All The World

by Telaryn



Series: The Hero and The Bad Boy [17]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Established Relationship, Fights, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Iron Man 3 Spoilers, M/M, Movie Reference, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Secret Relationship, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 18:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during the events of Iron Man 3.  After learning that he survived the Mandarin's attack, Pepper summons Quinn and sends him after Tony to make sure that Stark is okay and that he knows she wants him home safe and in one piece.  Quinn convinces Clint to accompany him on the trip.</p><p>None of them are aware at first that S.H.I.E.L.D. is on the scene, having dispatched a familiar face to conduct reconnaissance on the situation.</p><p>A familiar, presumed-dead face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All The Bars In All The World

If he hadn’t been on the verge of vomiting his own heart out into the snow, Tony would have laughed at how perfectly Barton had played the moment. Just as Harley’s question, “Do you have PTSD?” had penetrating the white noise of his rising anxiety attack, Clint had answered for him a single perfect beat later, “Of course he does.”

“Cap send you?” Tony asked weakly, looking up at his fellow Avenger. To his surprise, it was the man at Hawkeye’s shoulder who answered. Tony had hired Jonah Quinn to oversee Stark Industries’ international security concerns. He reported directly to Happy, and Tony experienced a brief spasm of pain at the thought of his friend lying comatose thousands of miles away… _made that way by the Mandarin._

“Pepper sent me,” Quinn said calmly. He’d left behind the immaculately tailored suits Tony had grown used to seeing him in, and was wearing an expensive black leather biker jacket over the close-fitting dark t-shirt and black and grey fatigue pants he’d been wearing when Clint and Tony had first met him in a Sudanese desert. _Back when he wasn’t a friend._ “She got your message,” the ex-mercenary went on, “and wanted to make sure whatever you were getting into you weren’t doing it alone.”

His heart was still pounding much too fast, his blood a roar of sound in his ears, but Tony managed to nod at Harley; the boy had moved into position behind him and one step to the side. “I’ve got all the back-up I need, so you can head back to LA or New York and make yourself useful.” He didn’t have it together enough to put the right weight of authority behind the order – if Quinn had come at Pepper’s direction it was going to take a hell of a lot more than Tony’s own stubborn assertions to get the man to change his focus.

“You’re Hawkeye, aren’t you?” Tony hung his head hearing the tremor of excitement in the kid’s voice. He’d been pestering Tony almost since the moment they’d met for information on the Avengers and what had happened during the Chitauri attack on New York. He didn’t even need to see the smile on Barton’s face to know that Clint would be a lot more forthcoming with his stories than Tony had been able to manage with his.

“I’m not doing this,” he muttered, shaking his head and climbing out of the pit he and Harley had been examining. “You all can have your little fan club meeting…” Barton was already slipping past him to distract Harley, which left Tony face to face with Quinn. “Don’t even start with me James Bond,” he snapped, raising his head to meet Quinn’s eyes. “I sign your goddamn paycheck.”

Quinn and Clint had officially been together too long, he thought, waiting for Quinn to reply. The ex-mercenary was developing a smirk that was nearly as annoying as Barton’s was. “Actually, _sir_ ,” he said, clasping his hands in front of him, “I believe Ms. Potts is the one that signs my goddamn paycheck. And before you even try it, Hawkeye is here in a completely unofficial capacity. I think we can both agree this isn’t an Avengers thing.”

Tony didn’t know why he said it. Like so many other times in his life, he didn’t set out to be an asshole, but seeing Quinn _here_ instead of glued to Pepper’s side when they were facing a threat the size and scope of the Mandarin terrified him on a level he hadn’t felt in years. “So it’s ‘bring your fucktoy to work day’? Sweet – I didn’t get the memo.”  
******************  
Quinn’s gaze ticked briefly past Tony, but even though Clint had to have heard the barbed, poisonous statement he was keeping all his outward attention on the boy; drawing him into conversation and away from any ugliness that might be about to explode. “You look like hell boss,” he said finally, settling his expression and bringing his focus back to Stark. “Do you even have a plan?”

Tony certainly looked like a man who had survived nearly drowning after having a building dropped on him – several of the cuts and scrapes decorating his famous features were still seeping blood in places, and there was a dangerous light in his eyes Quinn recognized all too well. “Seriously?” he growled. “When do I not have a plan?”

“Can I help?” Quinn asked, keeping his voice as mild as possible. In a straight-up fight, without the Iron Man armor in play, he was reasonably sure he wouldn’t need Clint’s help to physically subdue the battered billionaire. He’d learned the hard way though, that men like Tony Stark were almost more dangerous when stripped of their tools and toys. _Never pays to underestimate a brain like that,_ he thought, memory of another older genius he’d once worked for briefly overshadowing his present circumstances.

“We should probably start by checking out the local watering hole,” Clint suggested, before Tony could say anything. Barton had an easy but controlling hand on the boy Harley’s shoulder. “That soldier whose death you’re looking into – Harley here says his wife’s got herself a regular stool.”

Quinn was half-expecting Stark to continue pushing them away, but something about the information Clint had gleaned from the boy seemed to orient his thoughts in a new direction. “Can I trust you to stay with Hawkeye and follow his orders?” he asked the boy, looking directly into Harley’s eyes. Quinn couldn’t help smiling as the kid glanced up at Clint with instant and obvious hero worship.

“Absolutely,” he said, looking back at Tony a moment later and nodding sharply.

Stark looked at his fellow Avenger. “You two keep an eye on the perimeter.” After Clint nodded, Tony pivoted and started past Quinn. “Quinn, you’re with me.”

It was the most natural thing in the world to fall into step at Tony’s heels as they crossed the moderately busy street. Stark was a good man who’d been pushed well past his limits by circumstances beyond his control; Quinn had definitely followed worse leaders into battle in his day. “Let me go in first,” he said quickly as they reached the opposite sidewalk. Tony slowed, looking at him quizzically. “Just to get into position,” he finished. “Don’t bother looking for me – just stay focused on your target. I’ve got your back.”

He didn’t wait to hear whether Stark agreed or disagreed with him as he slipped inside.  
************************  
It hadn’t taken more than a cursory glance at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s files on the Mandarin to figure out Stark’s motivation for ending up in a place like this. Somebody like the soldier Davis was a way into whatever it was the Mandarin had planned; a point at which to enter the investigation where few people possible would see him coming. S.H.I.E.L.D. proper was still several days and several long committee meetings from entering the fight against the elusive terrorist, although Stark’s televised threat against the man had been a welcome means of accelerating the process.

 _Which is why it’s a good thing I haven’t been reinstated yet,_ Phil Coulson thought, talking another swallow of his beer and studying the crowd. It was the same group of small town, rural sorts it had been the previous handful of nights as he waited for Stark to realize this was where he needed to be.

Spotting the Extremis-enhanced agents in the crowd hadn’t been difficult. Even if the faint glowing flashes that showed just below their skin could be explained away as a trick of the light, they were making _no_ effort to fit in with the local crowd. _Ellen Brandt and Eric Savin,_ he thought, mentally tagging the two he recognized from the files Fury had given him. Technically neither of them was invulnerable, although Phil had a moment where he wished he’d been able to smuggle a small army along with him on the trip.

Movement at the door drew his eye; Coulson straightened involuntarily as he saw Jonah Quinn enter the bar. The reality of the face he’d spent so many months staring at in Fury’s files slipped easily through the crowd until he reached a free space at the bar. _What the hell is he doing here?_ All the intel they had on the Mandarin’s attack said that Tony had flown from California alone, and the only call he’d made that they’d intercepted was his one to Pepper Potts.

Following hard on the heels of Coulson’s confusion at seeing his rival in the flesh for the first time was the far more terrifying realization that Hawkeye was likely somewhere close by. “Dammit Barton,” he breathed, forcing himself to stay where he was and take another casual drink of his beer. If Tony was getting ready to make contact with Davis’ widow, his best bet was to stick to the plan, provide what support he could, and escape in the resulting chaos. Bolting like a rookie at this point was only going to guarantee he ran straight into the one man he couldn’t afford to be seen by yet.  
********************  
It wasn’t even close to an ideal setting if things went seriously wrong. Quinn signaled the bartender for a beer and settled his back against the thick, smoke stained wood in order to make another casual scan of the area. He’d spotted the Widow Davis on his way in, and chosen his position specifically to keep her in his field of view.

 _”I trust you to tell me the truth about what’s happening.”_ Bruised and battered, her life literally in ruins around her, Pepper had been calm and in control as she faced him and detailed what she wanted. Quinn understood why a self-styled ‘manwhore’ like Tony Stark kept returning to orbit around this woman – every time he had to interact with her he could feel himself falling a little more in love with her. _”Watch his back as long as he’ll let you, and make sure he knows I expect him home in one piece.”_

Settling his awareness, Quinn realized with a jolt that he could feel somebody watching _him_. He waited until he could feel his beer nudging at his elbow, then used turning and picking it up as an excuse to check the area of the bar behind and to his right. The only person in his field of vision that tugged at his instincts was an older man in shabby looking work clothes sitting by himself, nursing a bottle of something. If asked, Quinn couldn’t put his finger on what it was about the man – he didn’t seem too different from any of the locals that moved around his booth – but there _was_ something. _It’s a very distinctive…_ he heard Eliot say in his memory, but Quinn couldn’t for the life of him supply _what_ filled in that blank?

Movement in the direction of the door caught his eye; shifting smoothly, he saw Tony enter the bar. Their eyes met briefly, and then Stark continued scanning the room until he saw his target.

Simultaneously, a man at the bar to Quinn’s left – a man who now that Quinn saw him he realized was making little to no effort to blend into the crowd – slid off his stool and began moving in Tony’s direction. _Here we go,_ he thought, pushing himself to his feet again and starting to move into position behind the interloper.

This one was slender, but carried himself like a soldier. Quinn studied him as closely as he dared looking for weapons, but if the man was carrying anything it wasn’t obvious in the dim, smoky light of the bar. He was secretly relieved – even though he had his knife and both of his 9mm on him, pulling a weapon in these kind of close quarters was only going to guarantee an innocent bystander getting hurt.

 _You know, life was a lot simpler when you didn’t worry about stuff like that._ It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and Quinn pushed it to the back of his mind as quickly as he could. They were close enough now to where Tony and Mrs. Davis were talking that he could hear Stark’s voice like a sort of white noise penetrating his focus on his target.

“You don’t want to do this, friend,” he murmured, stepping in behind the man close enough for them to be touching each other, just as he heard a new voice in Tony’s direction declaring themselves to be “FBI.” “Not a fight you can win.”

He’d been ready for the roundhouse, even before the man telegraphed it. Ducking under the blow, Quinn tackled his target at the midsection, knocking both of them away from Tony and into a large knot of people. Bystanders scrambled out of the way in all directions, giving Quinn room to roll free and come up on his feet.

 _What the hell?_ It had only been half a heartbeat, but Quinn’s brain was suddenly screaming at him that his opponent’s eyes had flashed a deep, fiery orange. “You made a bad fucking mistake,” the man growled, stalking towards Quinn.

Forcing himself back on task, Quinn started backing up. There was no use in wasting breath disagreeing with the man, because as far as he was concerned anything that pulled additional threats away from Tony was a positive. Instead, once he reached a clear space in the room, he settled into stance and grinned. “Show me what you’ve got.”

The man’s attack confirmed his military background, and by the time Quinn had dodged his third blow he was willing to concede that among his peers the guy was probably considered an expert. Quinn, on the other hand, hadn’t trained with less than an Olympic boxing champion in over a year. He’d thrived for over a decade in a profession where the mortality rate was impossibly high, and he’d once fought Eliot Spencer to a draw.

Pride in his own skill made him sloppy; a fist finally slipped past his guard and connected with his cheekbone. Even though he tried to move with the blow, tears of pain sprang to his eyes as the bone snapped under considerably more force than he’d been expecting from his opponent.

Reacting with a deadly mix of instinct and adrenaline, Quinn spun into a kick that should have bought him more than enough space and time to recover. Instead his foot was grabbed and twisted until he felt bones come apart. Pain lit the inside of his skull, momentarily blinding him as he collapsed.

His vision was only starting to clear when the man dropped heavily onto his chest, knocking what little breath he’d retained out of him. “Like I said,” he repeated, his eyes beginning to glow with the same fiery orange light he’d seen flash earlier, “bad fucking mistake.”

Still dazed, trying to shove aside the explosions of pain in his leg and his skull and struggle free, Quinn nevertheless gaped as his assailant raised a similarly glowing hand. “Brace yourself,” the man laughed. “This is really going to hurt.”

Panic took hold of Quinn as the hand reached for his throat and he felt the impossible heat coming off it. Ignoring any further potential damage he might be doing to himself, his struggles became so frantic that he was nearly free of the man’s weight when burning hot fingers wrapped themselves around his throat. There was a moment of white-hot agony, the sound of a Glock going off way too close to his ears for any kind of comfort, and both the heat and the weight of his captor were abruptly gone.  
*******************  
 _Recon mission…_ He was only supposed to observe, to scope out the situation so Fury’s intel was as up to date as possible by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. decided what to do. He’d allowed for the possibility that he might have to interfere if Stark was cornered by Killian’s agents, but Coulson had never envisioned this. Quinn’s instincts had been good, drawing Eric Savin away from Tony, but it had forced Coulson to fight nearly the entire length of the establishment to get to him and he still nearly hadn’t made it in time.

Savin was already starting to regenerate by the time he stowed his sidearm and grabbed the nearly unconscious Quinn under the shoulders. It was impressive really – earlier test subjects would never have been able to do it.

His heart rate was much too heavy and much too fast by the time he got Quinn clear of the crowd, but Coulson refused to stop until they’d reached the relative safety of the back wall near the entrance to the kitchen. “Easy,” he ordered, letting go of Quinn as the ex-mercenary began to regain awareness of his surroundings. “You’re hurt.” He went to his knees at the man’s side, swallowing hard as he saw the ring of reddened skin around his neck.

Quinn laughed brokenly, blood streaming from the wound on his cheek. “No kidding.” Coulson watched as he struggled to focus. “You shoot him?”

Couslon nodded. “It’s not going to stop him for long, though. Stark’s already run – is Barton outside?” It made him think more of Quinn when he saw an immediate flash of suspicion through the pain and confusion. “I’m S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he added quickly. “Director Fury sent me to watch Stark.”

“Fury sending you doesn’t win you any points with me,” Quinn countered, gasping in pain as he tried to leverage himself into a sitting position. Coulson hurriedly grabbed him around the chest and helped steady him.

“How about saving your life?” he asked, letting Quinn go and sitting back on his heels. “What does that buy me?”

Quinn’s expression softened. “Enough. Clint’s outside – if Tony went out the front, he’ll pick up the tail.”

Coulson nodded, running through his options. “Do we need to get you to the hospital?”

“Eventually,” Quinn conceded. “Don’t suppose you’d tell me what the hell that guy was?” The skin of his neck was already starting to blister. _Second degree burn at least_ Coulson thought, feeling a pang of sympathy for his rival. Recovery from that wasn’t going to be easy or fun.

He finally settled on the easiest answer he could come up with. “It’s classified.” A heartbeat later, his conscience getting the better of him, he added, “If you can get word to Barton, tell him ‘Syria 2004’. He’ll know what it means and it will help.”  
*******************************  
After finding a safe place for the boy Harley, and securing his solemn promise that he would stay there, Clint had taken to the rooftops. His wait ended up being surprisingly short – the shouts and crashes of glass inside the bar started just as he was unslinging his bow. By the time he pulled and nocked his first arrow, the front doors had burst open and people had started running for cover.

He was going to owe Quinn one hell of an apology when this was over. _You really should have known better,_ he thought as he spotted Tony leaving the bar at a dead run. Anyone who’d ever met Pepper Potts knew that the woman didn’t overreact. They were all pretty certain she didn’t have it in her – Natasha had gone so far as to suggest she’d had the ability surgically removed.

However it had happened, losing her home and her…whatever Tony was these days…wasn’t likely to ever dampen Pepper’s ability to act in a crisis.

Keeping Stark in view, Clint leapt from one roof to the next, keeping bow and arrow at the ready as he scanned for threats. Tony had reached a bank of warehouses when Clint’s earpiece buzzed for his attention.

“Yeah,” he barked, leaping an even wider gulf between roofs than he’d been forced to before.

It was Quinn. “Syria, 2004,” he said. Clint was so startled by the information that he stumbled on landing – only barely saving himself from going to his knees and losing his grip on his equipment. “I’m supposed to tell you ‘Syria, 2004,’” Quinn repeated. “S.H.I.E.L.D. guy in the bar – said it would help you.”

Catching sight of Tony again, Clint exhaled sharply, allowing himself a moment to catch up. Stark appeared to believe he’d shaken his pursuit for the moment, and was leafing quickly through a file he’d somehow acquired. “Quinn?” Clint asked, lowering his bow and trying to calm his suddenly racing heartbeat. “Repeat please – what the hell did you just say?”

“Syria, 2004,” Quinn repeated, enunciating each word carefully. “Guy said it would help you.”

“Did he tell you his name?” Even though he knew it was impossible, Clint found himself hoping that somehow… _some way…_

“No,” Quinn said. “Saved my ass though. Does it help?”

Before he could fully process everything, Clint heard shouts and the sounds of a fresh scuffle breaking out below him. “It does,” he said quickly. “Gotta bounce.”  
*****************  
Message delivered, Quinn finally let himself give into the pain that was threatening to burn him up from the inside out. Paramedics had arrived on the scene, and were starting to make their way through what remained of the crowd. Somebody – he had no idea who – had asked if he was okay. He’d shrugged, or he thought he’d shrugged, unable to gather enough of his wits to form words or string them together.

This was going to be a bad recovery. While the pain in his cheek was exponentially worse, he knew from rewinding the moment in his mind that the break in his ankle was going to take longer to heal. _What the hell was that thing?_ The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent hadn’t seemed like a bad sort, but Quinn couldn’t help wishing he’d been a little more free with his information. _Stronger than normal human, some kind of pyrokinetic ability..._ Even if he was out of the game for the moment, he was going to have to convince Clint to stay with Tony. There was no way to keep his promise to Pepper otherwise – Iron Man or no, Tony was running on a deadly combination of anger and adrenaline at this point. There was no way he could crack whatever was going on alone.

Paramedics finally closed in around him then, firing questions and doing things to his body that brought him very nearly to the edge of lashing out physically. He managed to control the impulse until somebody decided to give him something for the pain, but it was a very near thing.

A needle was in his arm, and the world was going soft around him when he finally heard a familiar voice calling his name. “Quinn!”

His struggle to answer drew the attention of one of the men working on him, and a moment later Clint was at his side. “What the hell happened?” The archer was disheveled and covered in dirt, but otherwise appeared unharmed. Quinn felt a tension he hadn’t even realized he was clinging to ease. “Tony…nobody said you’d been hurt.”

“He didn’t know,” Quinn murmured, following Clint’s lead. “Was trying to pull one of the guys away from him.” He closed his eyes briefly, unable to resist the pull of the drugs trying to convince him to let go.

Clint’s hand was warm and gentle against his uninjured cheek. “You are a maniac, you know that?”

Quinn managed to turn his head into the touch, but it was the last thing he knew before the drugs finally took him under.  
*******************  
Clint didn’t bother asking permission before climbing into the back of the ambulance after Quinn was secured. Any argument either of the paramedics might have made about his presence were quickly swallowed back as soon as they saw his expression. Whatever these things were – mutants, aliens or something else – Quinn had been lucky he wasn’t hurt worse 

_Saved my ass._ The fact S.H.I.E.L.D. had been on site wasn’t a surprise. Even outside his connection to the Avengers, Tony had always been a person of considerable interest to the organization. They would have also had the means and methods to track his movements. They would have known that he’d been able to escape the devastation in California – after that, tracking the movement of the Iron Man armor was simple.

 _Which means things are going to get interesting from here._ Tony was already on his way out of town, but the armor hadn’t been in any shape to move as fast as he intended. He’d left it in the care of the boy Harley – an act which either confirmed his genius, or verified he was certifiable as far as Clint was concerned.

 _Syria, 2004._ Old pain, still sharp and bright, lanced through his chest, burying itself in his gut. Quinn couldn’t have known – there was no way he could have known. “I don’t talk about it,” he murmured, reaching for Quinn’s limp hand and wrapping his fingers around it. “I never talked about it.” He could feel the paramedics staring at him, but couldn’t manage to care what they thought.

It was one of those missions where everything had gone wrong from the get-go. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been pursuing an arms dealer in the region for six months before Clint and Coulson had been sent in to finish him off. The amount of time and resources that had been put into gathering their intel had made both of them inclined to trust it, and that had proven to be a horrific mistake.

Three weeks of set-backs, wrong turns and near misses had culminated in them believing they had their target cornered in one of his own warehouses. Through a stroke of blind luck Clint had finally gotten the shot; he’d barely waited for Coulson’s green light before he’d taken it.

The world, along with the warehouse, had exploded in a fireball the likes of which he’d never seen up close like that. The backwash had been hot enough to singe his exposed skin, even at a supposedly safe distance, and once S.H.I.E.L.D. teams had been able to sift through the wreckage they’d discovered shadow imprints of what had eventually totaled up to fourteen individual human beings. _The kind of phenomenon that occurs in a nuclear blast,_ he thought, his eyes ticking up to the angry burn circling Quinn’s throat.

It hadn’t been a nuclear blast – that was the only measure of relief he’d taken from the experience. And if S.H.I.E.L.D. had ever managed to determine what had really happened, they’d never seen fit to tell him.

Except…he’d seen the man Tony had taken down, and had seen the weird flashes of orange light that appeared to live just below his skin, and he’d remembered. He and Coulson had seen similar flashes of light on the arms dealer they’d taken down nearly a decade earlier, and while they had tried to dismiss what they’d seen as some sort of heat-induced hallucination, Clint now knew they’d been grasping at straws.

 _Had to have been one of the techs on scene,_ he decided, squeezing Quinn’s hand. It was the only answer that made any sense – that one of the techs familiar with what had happened in Syria had been the agent assigned by Fury to tail Tony.

The alternative was that Phil Coulson had somehow reached out from beyond the grave to give them information that could help them survive, and figure out what Tony was up against.  
**********************  
“You stupid, love-sick son of a bitch.”

It was the first thing Phil heard on regaining consciousness – and in spite of the pain that seemed to have seeped into every cell of his body, he smiled. “I feel I should remind you that I was doing you the favor, Director,” he said weakly. “This had nothing to do with my personal concerns.”

The worst of the pain was centered on his chest. _Heart attack._ He would wait for the doctors to confirm it, but the symptoms had been clear enough. He’d overdone things by diving into the bar fight, by dragging Quinn to safety, and then escaping in the resulting confusion.

“Are you trying to tell me Barton and his boyfriend weren’t on the scene?” Fury asked, drawing his attention.

“Irrelevant,” Coulson tutted. “I had no way of knowing they would be there. I was there at your request for the sole purpose of monitoring Tony Stark and calculating the degree of threat represented by the Extremis enhanced agents.”

He heard the scrape of metal chair legs against the floor as Fury dragged a chair into position and sat down. “You nearly die out there and you’re still able to spout that perfect sounding bureaucratic bullshit. Unbelievable.”

The two friends were quiet for a long moment. “I saved his life,” Coulson said finally, deliberately avoiding Fury’s gaze. “Quinn’s. He took on Eric Savin, trying to keep him away from Tony. Savin was getting ready to burn his throat out when I shot him in the head.”

“You know you could have done nothing,” Fury said. “You wouldn’t have undone months of rehab, and you’d have a clear path to Barton.”

The fact that his old friend’s words were only echoing Coulson’s own thoughts offered him no comfort at all. “I considered it,” he finally admitted with a sigh.


End file.
